Public Transit News / Current Events (MN only)

[mattaudio]

Also, if there's ever a station on 394 at 169, it should straddle 169 to serve Metropoint and General Mills. I bet there's more workers on the Metropoint side than on the General Mills side... there's also significant dense housing between Shelard and Ford Rd.

[LightSoup]

I thought you guys might be interested in this. Metro Transit is currently developing a service improvement plan and is seeking input from the public. You can find a link to the survey here: http://www.metrotransit.org/sip.

[Tcmetro]

Here's last year's regional SIP, which shows the projects Metro Transit submitted.
http://metrocouncil.org/Transportation/ ... IP%29.aspx

Essentially they were upgrades of routes 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 19, 22, 62, 68, 74, 515 to High-frequency standards or better. General frequency upgrades to routes 23, 61, 80, 535, 675, 721, and 723. New peak hour express service to new park and rides, and a new peak hour line from Seward to the U of M. Also included were arterial BRT projects for Chicago-Emerson, Snelling, and W 7th-E 7th.

In general I feel that the previous SIP was thrown together at the last minute, whereas it seems that this one will be more thought out. I'm hoping to see some restructures that take advantage of improved frequencies.

[RailBaronYarr]

Interesting post (with a dash of suburb vs. city rabble rousing ): http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/201 ... ansit.html

Our own woofner makes a good point in the comment section that in our metro, suburbs force MC's hand on projects/routes that favor the suburbs (and, IMHO, inflate the cost through parking), but at the same time the cities are hurting themselves by proposing streetcar lines on corridors already studied by MT for enhanced/rapid bus (Nicollet, Central, W 7th, E 7th, Robert). So it's a little of both.

But, because I was feeling feisty, I wanted to know what suburban transit investments have taken the place of other core route improvements that could have made a huge impact in the last few decades. I'll use the MVTA as a whipping boy in this example.. They have a total system ridership per day of 9,800 (link. pg 20). Over the last ~20 years they've built many stops/stations, but it's tough to find costs for all of them. The primary 3 stations are the Apple Valley, Eagan, and Burnsville Transit Stations, and have accessible construction cost (with funding sources, too). I converted costs to $2011 for fair comparison to the Metro Transit arterial study cost estimates (here). Total $2011 cost for just the stations (not including bus purchase costs, any other park and rides, etc) is $41.92M.

By comparison, the Hennepin Ave rapid bus proposal is estimated at $20.7M (including new bus purchases) for 10,900 corridor weekday riders. I'm not trying to say the suburban transit lines/stations have been a collective poor investment - compare the cost of adding another lane to 35W, 35E, and 77 to handle peak traffic and I think it probably wins out (although the 27% farebox ratio leads me to believe they could recover more by charging for parking...). Just pointing out the opportunity cost in having federal/CTIB/region dollars go to one instead of the other, and the challenge of balancing transit money across the region. Particularly when suburban lines are less productive, serve mainly 1 purpose (job commuting), and still require heavy road infrastructure to get people to the stations in the first place.

[mattaudio]

Buses, trains, bridges, highways are 'all about connecting people' - but are low-income people and people of color connecting with planners?
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2013/ ... me-people-

A good recap of the Zelle/Haigh roadshow from a good perspective.

[RailBaronYarr]

I think it's interesting to note that they both seem to view transportation as an issue unto itself - roads, bridges, corridors, transit, etc. It all assumes people need something to get them to daily needs without asking the question of where all the daily needs are situated relative to each other, as well as to people themselves. One of the comments brought this up pretty well:

Is there any way we can make walking safer here in the metro or state-wide? If you really want to know how your transportation system runs, just look outside the window. I don’t drive. Walking is the first mode of transportation.

A good overview of flipping (or at least mixing) the discussion was discussed here

[seanrichardryan]

'MnDOT plan paints grim picture of transit future'

http://www.startribune.com/politics/sta ... 06131.html

[twincitizen]

CTIB OKs $43 million in grants (including $17.6MM to continue work on SWLRT)

http://finance-commerce.com/transit/201 ... in-grants/

[Nick]

Question: Does anyone know why we went with Central/Southwest and Hiawatha/Bottineau? Out of the blue, the thought occurred to me that the opposite maybe makes more sense. I don't think I've heard that conversation before.

[mattaudio]

I've wondered the same thing. But for me it is primarily because transit maps are "cleaner" when the lines don't twist. Hardly a reason. But there must be a reason why they are choosing this interlining.

[MSPtoMKE]

Well, as it currently stands, the lines will "twist" downtown. I assume they have done origin-destination studies that show more people from the Southwest Corridor are heading to the U of M and St. Paul than those from the Northwest. That doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me, lots of Southwest Transit buses serve the U (although none serve St. Paul), whereas it seems fewer come from the Northwest suburbs (I suppose I should maybe check schedules on that!). It does make sense that they would want lines that are more straight than U shaped, though, to increase chances of people traveling through downtown without having to transfer.

[talindsay]

It's because a "U" isn't very effective - nobody will sit on a train for an hour to get to the MOA from the southwest suburbs when they can drive in twenty minutes. Bottineau could be tied to either, but tying Southwest to Hiawatha wouldn't generate many rides that continue through downtown whereas Southwest to Central will, and Bottineau to either would.

[David Greene]

^^^ That was my assumption as well.

[Tcmetro]

Southwest Transit will be offering a new service, Route 687 Hwy 212-Target Northern Campus, beginning February 10th. Three trips will operate each way, serving East Creek P&R, Southwest Village P&R, and Southwest Station P&R.

http://www.swtransit.org/target-north-campus-service

This is in addition to new service that launched last month on routes 695 and 698, providing direct peak hour reverse commute service from the southwest suburbs to Hennepin Ave in downtown, and new evening service from the southwest to the Metrodome and the University.

[Tcmetro]

Here's a link to the 2013 Park and Ride study. Park and ride usage reached a new record, with 19,149 vehicles on average per day. 2013 saw 2 new facilities, 5 expanded facilities, and 7 closed facilities (leased lots) for a net gain of 1,756 spaces.

http://www.metrocouncil.org/Council-Mee ... Syste.aspx

A number of new facilities are expected to be opened this year. Southdale will re-open on Monday at the new location. Marschall Road in Shakopee, and Newport should also open later in the year. Other new facilities are in the works in Maple Plain, Carver, Lino Lakes, Vadnais Heights, Woodbury, Minnetonka, Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove,and along the SW and Bottineau lines.

Honestly, I'm surprised that there is still so much investment in park and rides. It doesn't seem like we are getting huge increases in park and riders, despite all the new facilities that would suggest otherwise.

[Tcmetro]

Metro Council will be doing a funding switch-around that will allow Metro Transit to purchase 15 new buses, and Southwest Transit to purchase 8 new buses. The 15 new buses will be used as follows:

Route 30: 2 buses to provide service from Fremont and West Broadway to the U of M West Bank via Broadway, New Brighton Bl, Stinson/18th, Como 15th/Pleasant, and Washington Ave.

Route 376: 4 articulated buses to provide service from Manning Ave Park and Ride to Downtown Minneapolis

Route 386: 3 40-foot buses to provide service from Manning Ave Park and Ride to Downtown St. Paul

Route 565: 3 40-foot buses to provide service from Knox Ave Park and Ride to Target Northern Campus

Route 766: 3 articulated buses to add service between Noble/610 Park and Ride and Downtown Minneapolis.

A Line: Up to 12 new vehicles for the A line.

All services except the A Line are likely to begin service in 2014.

http://metrocouncil.org/Council-Meeting ... ignmt.aspx

[FISHMANPET]

Route 30 looks interesting, though according to that document It's gonna go to St Paul Midway and not the UofM. Do you have more information than just that document?

[go4guy]

So, many anti-LRT people argue that if one train goes down, the whole system goes down and that LRT is not reliable. Well, we got 4 inches last night. I just read a tweet saying buses are averaging 12 minutes behind with only 36% of the buses being on time. The LRT is on schedule with no issues. I havent seen this before, but is this common when it snows? Or even rains? Seems like that would mess up the schedule. And how often is LRT shut down for mechanical issues? Would make for a good argument on those Strib comment threads.

[Tcmetro]

Even the HOV lanes on the freeway slow down significantly during snowstorms, especially when they happen in the peak periods.

The only thing that really seems to affect operations of the light rail is icing of the overhead wires. This is relatively uncommon occurrence, and even then really only seems to impact service for an hour or two at most.

--

As for Route 30, I took the routings from the Northwest Metro Restructure (2006), and the Central Corridor Restructure (2012);
http://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/ ... reServ.pdf
http://www.metrotransit.org/Data/Sites/ ... edPlan.pdf

[PhilmerPhil]

For what it's worth, this morning I got to the Franklin Station at 7:45 to catch the 7:50 southbound train. A train didn't come until 8:04. Nineteen minutes of waiting. Two northbound trains went during this time period.